Friday, January 20, 2012

Me, SOPA, and the Internet Revolution






















This graphic speaks for itself eh? The day before and the day after the internet revolution.

Then Wednesday happened, and suddenly everyone seemed to understand how serious this was. Wikipedia went dark, and the country wailed; we realized how much we have come to depend on the crowdsourced encyclopedia. Google hung a black sash on its logo. Crowds marched in protest. Facebook issued an uncharacteristically political statement (although we urged it to go further). Network news could not fail to take note.

In short: the Internet got its act together, and the world shook.

And now it's time to say hooray for us.

So, well done, Internet. You did it. You took a relatively obscure bill and you made the world care. One concerted day of action by you shook Washington to its core. Lobbyists like Dodd who have had too much unquestioned control for too long got served notice. There’s a new power player in town; not one man in a suit, but millions of faces with electronic megaphones. And this power player doesn’t take kindly to bills that threaten its behavior.

Of course, before I killed SOPA, by going to black blue.

I had to ask myself some hard questions about my own behaviour. 

Like would I REALLY miss something like this?



And the answer was....YES. Yes I definitely would.

But that's just me eh?






















Oh well. If only we could get rid of Stephen Harper and his Cons so easily.

Hooray for the internet.

Have a great weekend everybody !!

2 comments:

Michel said...

As always, fun and informative post. Just thought I'd share a link to Clay Shirky's TedTalk on why SOPA is a terrible idea. It's really straightforward, brief and informative.

http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html

On a totally different note, I'm glad you stopped with the "I don't think I'm going to blog anymore" posts. :D

Although, it's much easier to blog in the Winter than Summer...

Simon said...

hi Michel...Thanks I'm glad you liked it. And thanks for the link. I'm going to have to stop drawing Mickey Mouse pictures on chocolate cakes immediately. BTW...I saw an ad on TV today from the motion picture cartel reacting to the SOPA defeat. And guess who they were blaming...wait for it..."foreign interests" Right.
As for the "I don't think I'm going to blog anymore" posts, I usually have one of those episodes once a year. But as you point out so cruelly, they're almost always in summer... ;)